Information and data processing is increasingly becoming an endemic part of aspects of modern society. And, with continued technological advancements, the pervasiveness of information technologies into yet further aspects of business and recreational activities shall likely occur.
Information technology, in large part, pertains to the accumulation, manipulation, storage, and retrieval of data. With the availability of digital processing devices and techniques, large amounts of data, once accumulated, can quickly be manipulated and processed. And, many different types of storage media have been developed, permitting the digital data to be stored, both on a transient basis and permanently. Electronic, magnetic, and optical storage media are all general categories of storage media that are used to store data. Data storage media of the different categories exhibit different characteristics and provide different advantages. Generally, electronic storage media provides for the quickest access of stored data while magnetic and optical storage media provides for bulk storage of large amounts of data at modest costs.
Standardization bodies have promulgated standardized formatting and storage schemes that have been widely adopted. Data storage, retrieval, and processing apparatus constructed to be incompliance with the promulgations of the standard setting bodies permit the data to be retrieved and manipulated by any device that operates in conformity with the standard.
Optical storage media, such as the aforementioned compact discs and digital video discs, are each capable of storing digital data that is later is retrievable. Compact discs and digital video discs upon which digital data forming music, video, multimedia, etc. data is commercially available, e.g., available for purchase with the digital data recorded thereon. A purchaser, using an appropriate data retrieval and display device, reads and plays the data, permitting viewing of the stored data. Some commercially available devices provide for the recording of the data on such compact discs or digital video discs.
The data recorded on these storage media and the dimensions of the storage media conform to standards promulgated by standard setting bodies, thereby to ensure that the data stored on the storage media can later be read by another device that operates in conformity with the standard.
Both compact discs and digital video discs are of substantially identical physical dimensions but have differing storage capacities. Such storage media are of generally circular, planar dimensions, having diametral dimensions of approximately 120 mm, thereby defining a substantially planar disc. Compact discs and digital video discs also generally are formed of a substrate and lamination layers formed upon both sides of the substrate. The data is printed, i.e., etched, upon one, or both, of the surfaces of the substrate.
While the lamination layers are intended to protect the surfaces of the substrate, moisture, or other material, collecting at the edge surface of the disc might seep between the layers of the disc, thereby damaging the disc and preventing the recorded data, recorded thereon, from being retrieved.
Additionally, material adhering to the surfaces of the disc, such as on the laminated coatings, might also limit, or prevent, the subsequent ability of a device to read the data stored at the disc.
Environmental conditions of the ambient atmosphere about the optical storage media might, at least in part, be the cause of degradation or damage to the optical media storage disc. While containers for supporting such optical media storage discs are available and commonly used, sometimes referred to as cassettes, their use does not isolate the media storage discs from ambient environmental conditions, such as degrading atmospheric elements. As a media storage disc is susceptible to damage or degradation from ambient environmental conditions contained in the atmosphere, if a manner could be provided by which better to isolate the media storage from such conditions, damage and degradation to the media storage would be less likely to occur.
It is in light of this background information related to the protection of storage media that the significant improvements of the present invention have evolved.